Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception and Second week of Advent! I have been meaning to formulate an Advent post for a while, but these things require time and inspiration which I've had plenty of the latter, but perhaps not very much of the former! But I'm not complaining. I like to stay busy. Busyness, however, seems to be the age old antagonist for a reflective Advent.
I have always been "that student" that starts projects way in advance so there is plenty of time to complete them. I am not a procrastinator. So in true form, I made sure to start thinking about how I was going to celebrate Advent well in advance. When home in Ohio visiting family, I like to go to a perpetual Adoration chapel on Lake Erie. I probably have posted about it before:
When I was home for Thanksgiving this year, I had a couple of days before the first Sunday of Advent to reflect. My thoughts went to the typical theme of Advent: waiting. I've always found the waiting during Advent to be pretty easy. I do not, however, find waiting in general to be an easy thing to do. So I started to think about this. What makes waiting during Advent so much easier than waiting in "ordinary time", Lent, or the rest of the year?
I think waiting during Advent is easier because we know the outcome. We know that Christmas is going to come and that it's going to be great. We know that Jesus coming to earth was and is a good thing. So that makes the waiting much easier: we already know the outcome and we know it to be a positive one.
Waiting is much harder when we don't know what will be and we don't know if the outcome will be positive. The only way to make the waiting a little easier is to live in the present moment, not worry, and to trust. Much easier said than done!
So I am trying this Advent to really soak in and live that easy, joyful anticipation for Advent so that I can get good at it and apply it when the waiting isn't as easy. I'm trying to be more joyful in the present moment which hopefully will translate well past the Christmas season.
Today is the feast of the Immaculate Conception. At our school Mass, we went all out with the Marian music today: every song was Mary themed. I, myself, as a music minister usually try to diversify the selection a little more, but it seemed to be effective today, and I got a lot of compliments on the music for the liturgy.
The priest was a visiting priest and gave such an inspiring but simple homily. He examined the first reading for the feast which is the story of Adam and Eve. He brought to our attention that in this story we hear the first question that God ever asks mankind: "Where are you?". I had never thought of that before. The priest went on to apply that question to many aspects of our lives: where are we among the poor? Where are we in helping one another? Where are we with our relationship with God? And he told us to answer that question like Mary's fiat: "here I am."
It was such a beautiful way to connect Eve to Mary and us to the Scripture as well as apply it to the modern day. All in all what a homily should be! And it has given me something else to think about this Advent: Where am I truly in this present moment? Where am I in my commitment to God and joy this season?
It also relates to the book my women's group and I have been reading: Testimony of Hope by Cardinal Van Thuan. We had decided the last time that we met that we all needed to focus a little more on the virtue of Hope. There are many good points that the author makes in this text, but one that stood out for me ties in with these questions of the present moment. The cardinal points out that sometimes we are so focused on the "acts of God" that we miss God Himself. We focus on the results or outcome of our prayer rather than His presence in it. I just think that is another great insight as we contemplate active waiting in this time of Advent. Asking ourselves: "where are we?" and hoping that we can answer: "here I am- I am with my Lord."
I hope and pray that everyone is having a blessed Advent and happy "new" liturgical year!
Peace,
Julia
I have always been "that student" that starts projects way in advance so there is plenty of time to complete them. I am not a procrastinator. So in true form, I made sure to start thinking about how I was going to celebrate Advent well in advance. When home in Ohio visiting family, I like to go to a perpetual Adoration chapel on Lake Erie. I probably have posted about it before:
When I was home for Thanksgiving this year, I had a couple of days before the first Sunday of Advent to reflect. My thoughts went to the typical theme of Advent: waiting. I've always found the waiting during Advent to be pretty easy. I do not, however, find waiting in general to be an easy thing to do. So I started to think about this. What makes waiting during Advent so much easier than waiting in "ordinary time", Lent, or the rest of the year?
I think waiting during Advent is easier because we know the outcome. We know that Christmas is going to come and that it's going to be great. We know that Jesus coming to earth was and is a good thing. So that makes the waiting much easier: we already know the outcome and we know it to be a positive one.
Waiting is much harder when we don't know what will be and we don't know if the outcome will be positive. The only way to make the waiting a little easier is to live in the present moment, not worry, and to trust. Much easier said than done!
So I am trying this Advent to really soak in and live that easy, joyful anticipation for Advent so that I can get good at it and apply it when the waiting isn't as easy. I'm trying to be more joyful in the present moment which hopefully will translate well past the Christmas season.
Today is the feast of the Immaculate Conception. At our school Mass, we went all out with the Marian music today: every song was Mary themed. I, myself, as a music minister usually try to diversify the selection a little more, but it seemed to be effective today, and I got a lot of compliments on the music for the liturgy.
The priest was a visiting priest and gave such an inspiring but simple homily. He examined the first reading for the feast which is the story of Adam and Eve. He brought to our attention that in this story we hear the first question that God ever asks mankind: "Where are you?". I had never thought of that before. The priest went on to apply that question to many aspects of our lives: where are we among the poor? Where are we in helping one another? Where are we with our relationship with God? And he told us to answer that question like Mary's fiat: "here I am."
It was such a beautiful way to connect Eve to Mary and us to the Scripture as well as apply it to the modern day. All in all what a homily should be! And it has given me something else to think about this Advent: Where am I truly in this present moment? Where am I in my commitment to God and joy this season?
It also relates to the book my women's group and I have been reading: Testimony of Hope by Cardinal Van Thuan. We had decided the last time that we met that we all needed to focus a little more on the virtue of Hope. There are many good points that the author makes in this text, but one that stood out for me ties in with these questions of the present moment. The cardinal points out that sometimes we are so focused on the "acts of God" that we miss God Himself. We focus on the results or outcome of our prayer rather than His presence in it. I just think that is another great insight as we contemplate active waiting in this time of Advent. Asking ourselves: "where are we?" and hoping that we can answer: "here I am- I am with my Lord."
I hope and pray that everyone is having a blessed Advent and happy "new" liturgical year!
Peace,
Julia
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